Your choice and God's choice

I have recently been given some words from God that might help some understand the difference between “being saved” and “being born again”.

The words are - that we are saved from our sins when we choose Jesus Christ as our savior and we are born again when Jesus Christ chooses us after we have made Him our Lord. Whether we are saved from the bondage of our sin nature is our choice, but whether we are born again of God’s Holy Spirit is a choice God makes - not us.

Jesus can save us from a life in bondage to sin – so we no longer have to sin, and then it is our choice to sin or not sin. If we believe in Jesus’ blood being spent on the cross for our sins, we are then freed from the bondage of sin (this is the free gift), but getting rid of this sin that has had control over us for so long requires a retraining of our minds and believing we can die to all our sins in the power of God’s grace. This is the sanctification process that we must go through in order for us to be brought to the point where God will choose us as His sons and daughters.

When we are born again (born of His Holy Spirit), we have been chosen by God to receive His Holy Spirit. God chooses us by looking into our hearts and if He sees that we love Him above ourselves, all people, things and everything else and we show this by our obedience to His commandments – God then sends the Holy Spirit (Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, and His pure Love) into our hearts. After we are born of His Holy Spirit – we are then His Sons and Daughters and we then become a part of His Kingdom and we are no longer part of the devil’s kingdom of this world.

So becoming a true son of God is a process. Becoming a son of God is not of our choice – but God’s choice.

Salvation from our sinful nature is our choice and will lead us to becoming a son of God if we become obedient to His love and commandments.

Salvation from our sinful nature doesn’t mean we have been born of God – salvation from our sinful nature is only the start of the process (start of sanctification) and we need to keep repenting of all our sins to the point where we become obedient to all God’s commandments out of the love we have for our Father in heaven.

We do not become a part of God’s eternal kingdom by being saved from our sins – it is only the first step we need to take to start our sanctification process. The sanctification process and our love for God is what will bring us into His everlasting kingdom.


God’s servant and yours,
Michael Reid